This is one of the world’s tallest office building as well and is part of the Costanera Center Santiago project complex which also includes a proposal to build two other towers along with it which will be 170 meters high.

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I know lot of people are interested about the constructions of the proposed 1 kilometer (1000 meter) tall Kingdom Tower building in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. If its ever built it will become the tallest building on earth. So here are some fresh Kingdom Tower Jeddah construction pictures. They don’t show much but definitely indicate the start of piling for the construction of the mammoth tower. These Kingdom Tower construction photos were taken Mr. Rody Alshafei on the 18th of April 2013.Commenting about these pictures Mr. Rody says, “I went to the [Kingdom Tower] site today, work has finished in some foundations, concrete mixing towers are suddenly appeared. On the other hand, they have made a fence around the Tower’s plot to separate the Tower’s site than the rest of the plot (kingdom City)”Here is a video Mr. Rody had post on YouTube showing the whole Kingdom Tower construction site with the piling work and machinery.

About a month ago, a Saudi Newspaper had reported that the Kingdom Tower construction will finally start from the 1st of April 2013.

Here is a diagram comparing a 1000m version of Saudi Arabian Jeddah Kingdom Tower to other tallest buildings in the world today like the Dubai Burj Khilafa, Empire New York State Building , China World Financial Center tower and the new New York City One Freedom Tower.

I know lot of skyscraper fans were frustrated with lack of information and pictures about the progress of this Jeddah Kingdom Tower. It was proposed way back in 2007 but nothing was done upto now except erecting a fence around the site and some test drilling a few years back. Now finally those eager fan have got their wish granted!

The construction of this tower may have taken so long to get started most probably because of the financial crisis of 2008-2009 that affected the booming real estate market in Dubai and Middle East very badly. But I also think it can be because of the highly divided reaction the Kingdom Tower received throughout the media and public. Many real estate investors and journalist still see the iconic 1 kilometer Jeddah Kingdom Tower as nothing more than the result of self-centered and attention seeking competition between oil-rich Arab nation states that will serve no purpose other than as a white elephant, costing more and generating less than expected, if it even gets built!

The Turkish Folkart Yapı Construction company is building two interesting twin towers in Izmir, Turkey’s 3rd largest city. These new twin towers are called the Folkart Towers Izmir and will be 200 meters high and have 40 storey’s. They will be 3rd tallest building in Turkey and the tallest buildings in Turkey outside of the mega Istanbul city. Furthermore, once completed, they will also be the 5th tallest twin towers in Europe!Like the graphic renderings shown here, the twin towers will have a interesting and unusual shape at its base and middle sections. The towers distinctive design prompted one graphic artist to create the below graphic for the project that shows the towers like the legs of the humanoid robots in the famous block buster Hollywood Transformers movie. Some people are even calling this the Transformers building in Turkey!

This twin Folkart Towers Izmir project is a 150 million dollar investment and mixed used real estate development project which will have over a 27.000 m2 area of land. It will house shopping centers, sports complexes, offices and luxury residences. The luxury residencies of Folkart Towers will consists of 1, 2, 3 and 4 bed apartments with prices starting from 196 thousand US dollars!

Construction began in July 2011. One Folkart tower’s is already nearing completion with properties schedules to be delivered at the end of 2013. According to www.realestatenewsturkey.com, almost 60 per cent of this entire Izmir Folkart Tower project, has been sold.

If you are interested to know more information about these interesting towers check out the official website at www.folkarttowers.com. For latest pictures of the actual building construction project checkout this buildings skyscrapercity.com forum page.

The city of London, filled with majestic old buildings from its British Empire days has now got a number of very unusual looking, highrise buildings and skyscrapers. One of them is the new giant tower at No. 122, Leadenhall Street, London. Because of its distinctive shape, this new Leadenhall Building has got a famous nickname called the Cheese Grater Building in London.

Officially this skyscraper is called the Leadenhall Building London. It’s a fine new 225 meter (or 737 feet) tall skyscraper with 48 floors. That’s not very tall compared to the worlds tallest buildings. But its shape catches your eye even though it is among many other new distinctive looking tall buildings in the London city.

Other distinctive looking new skyscraper near it are The Pinnacle tower (nicknamed Helter-Skelter), the Walkie-Talkie building at 20 Fenchurch Street and the Gherkin 30 St Mary Axe to name a few skyscrapers. Because of all these high rise skyscrapers the City of London has recently acquired a new respect among the world skyscraper fans.

As this tower is situated adjacent to the world famous Lloyd’s insurer building, many think this building will come to house office of insurance companies. Oxford Properties are the co-developers of this building project in partnership with British Land.

Below is a height comparison of the London Leadenhall building against other famous and iconic buildings in London.

There is lot of comments made these days by the online skyscraper community about whether the London Leadenhall building will also become an iconic symbol for the city. But it is certainly going to be one of the city’s most widely recognized examples of modern architecture.

There is also a famous and specialist cheese monger called Cheese at Leadenhall at 4-5 Leadenhall Market. We wonder whether that also contributed for people to start referring to this building as the Leadenhall Cheese Grater building? Only a local can tell!!!

Here is the 1450 feet tall Lodha World One Mumbai Residential Skyscraper. It is currently India’s tallest building under construction and is a residential skyscraper with a proposed height of 442 meters and 117 floors!

According to some claims this Mumbai World One skyscraper will be the world’s tallest residential building once completed! Giant Towers agrees with this claim because the supertall Pentonium building in Dubai, which was set to become the world’s tallest residential tower with a height of 516m and 122 floors, is currently on hold for a long time.

Even this World One tower was schedule to be completed by 2014 but according to latest news from Lodha Group the building will be inaugurated somewhere in the first quarter of 2016.

Below is a view of how the Mumbai skyline will look once the World One building is completed. You can clearly see how tall it is against the other skyscrapers in Mumbai.

This World One tower is part of a massive multi tower project by India’s Lodha Group on the defunct Shrinivas Mills in the heart of Mumbai. The architect of the World One Mumbai is Pei Cobb Freed and Partners. (Please note, we hear authorities have given approval for only 90 floors!)

Mumbai World One building will house about 300 super luxury homes, including three and four bedroom residences, villas with own private pools and a limited number of luxury mansions as well.

The apartment prices in World One would start from INR7.5 crore (US$1.4 million) and the most expensive one be as much as INR50 crore (US$9.2 million). The project will cost INR2000 crore (US$370 million) and Lodha Group expects to earn a revenue of INR5000 crore (US$920 million) from the sale of the apartments according to Wikipedia.

We can see that this building has already won the hearts of many Indians by the many names by which they refer it such as, the World Towers Mumbai, World One Lodha and Mumbai World One among others.

There is a 42 story skyscraper currently under construction in Toronto, Canada called the Pinnacle on Adelaide building. This is a 140 meter tall building and is being built at the site of a well preserved heritage building called Richard West House. So Pinnacle International, the developers of this modern Pinnacle on Adelaide skyscraper have taken the rare feat to preserve the 150 year old heritage house. (Pinancle International are also developers of the next tallest Building in Toronto about which Giant Towers reported in the previous post)

The photo below shows the extreme engineering feat they are undertaking in order to preserve it by moving the old house intact on wheels, across the road.In order to preserve it they have had to uproot and move this historic building across the road temporarily. Next they are going to re-move it to its original location, which will be within the skyscraper building complex, after it is completed.

Here is a interesting YouTube video of how this old house moving was done. It was titled, “The Pinnacle on Adelaide Heritage House Move”

According to information posted along with the video by the developer, this heritage building had been built in 1869. It is one of the last remaining buildings that tell the story of the historical evolution of this Toronto neighbourhood in the mid-19th century.

The heritage building’s gothic revival style showcases the patented two-toned brickwork trends of the late 1800s most famously used for Victorian churches. Located within the King-Spadina area, this property at 104 John Street signified the westward growth of the original Town of York. This new area encapsulated many of the community’s most essential institutional buildings such as schools, hospitals and government buildings during that important period of city development and infrastructure growth. This historically and culturally significant house will be integrated into the new complex and restored to its yesteryear grandeur to be fully functional once again as a commercial or retail establishment in the community.

We think these developers have set an example by preserving an existing old building like this. It will be good if other developers and cities elsewhere too take note of this house moving at Toronto. Others also should take steps to preserve the old historic and iconic buildings found at new skyscraper sites. We are making this appeal because we see some of the most iconic old buildings belonging to different eras in many cities around the world to be found in the busiest and most expensive parts of that town. Most of the time, in order to cater to modern needs, those old building are demolished and the place is cleared for bigger and more modern skyscrapers and other urban development projects. This situation should change!

First Canadian Place, Tallest building in Canada since 1976. Image courtesy: Wikipedia

Anyone looking at the Toronto skyline will notice the very tall Toronto CN Tower that stands-out head and shoulders above other buildings in Toronto, Canada. But the Toronto CN Tower is not generally considered a high-rise building as it does not have successive floors that can be occupied even though it is the tallest man-made structure in Toronto and even in North America.

The title for the tallest building in Toronto is currently held by the First Canadian Place, which rises 298 metres (978 ft) tall in Toronto’s Financial District. First Canadian Place has held on to the title of being Toronto’s tallest building since it was completed in 1975. However we have got news that this honor will change hands in the near future.

A Vancouver based developer called Pinnacle International has now proposed to build a 88 storey (272m) building in Toronto. This building is going to be part of a mega development proposal for a tract of downtown land in Toronto that is bounded by Yonge and Freeland Streets, Lake Shore Blvd, and Queens Quay.

Proposed development includes 6 new Hariri Pontarini-designed buildings alongside a vertically-extended incarnation of the existing 25-storey Toronto Star building, with an eastbound extension of Harbour Street planned to run through the middle of the plot. The north block would contain 4 new primarily residential buildings are set to rise to heights of 75, 80, 80 and 88 storeys, the tallest of which is planned to rise 272 metres, measured to top of the uppermost floor. On the south block plans call for a 70-storey hotel and condominium tower, a 40-storey office building, and a 10-storey addition to the current Toronto Star building, bringing the total height of the structure up 136.0 metres.

These days, we here lot of proposal for super-tall building like this in Western cities facing opposition from various city planners and urban cogestion issues not to mention opposition from local community. The final result is the buildings that are built in these locations are significantly smaller than the original proposals. We hope that doesn’t happen to this proposal and it really gets built soon.

This is news from a popular email forward that’s going around these days called the Olympic Tower 2016. That email had these pictures of a giant solar-powered building with a waterfall falling from the top of the building to the bottom covering the whole front facade of the building. Like you can see in the pictures here looks like a giant cascade of water suddenly appearing in mid-air and falling down from the sky.

According to the email this tower will be both an observation tower, and a welcome sign for the visitors arriving by air and by sea for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro, Summer Olympic Games.

However contrary to claims there no guarantee yet from the Brazilian Rio Olympic Games organizers that this building will ever be built. So it is still just a concept and pictures from a architecture firm’s proposal of a wonderful building submitted for a competition in 2009 by RAFAA, a Zurich based architecture and design studio.

www.hoax-slayer.com, a website that analyses interesting email forward like this, had contacted the designers to verify this claim and they have said that they, “don’t have any confirmation from the local authorities so far and don’t know if this project will ever happen!

According to the proposal, this giant Solar City Tower will be based in an island called Cotonduba, just off the coast of Rio de Janeiro.It will utilizes solar energy during the day with its solo power panels, to pump the sea water as seen in the model. The waterfall like down movement of the water will again be utilized to turn the turbines and produce even more power to work the system at night time. (Can they repeatedly generate power like this? I don’t know how practical it is according to physics laws to achieve such a thing!)

This tower will have lifts that will take the visitors to the top, where the view will be fantastic. It also includes plans for bungee jumping from a special platform.

The designing firm RAFAA, also want the organisers to also consider another important point by building this solar powered tower. In 1992, Rio de Janeiro hosted a famous United Nations Earth Summit, which is still talked about today. The proposal designers wanted Rio to once again be the starting point for a global green movement and for a sustainable development of urban structures and homes. They say, it will perhaps even become a symbol for the first zero carbon footprint Olympic Games.

How marvelous it will be if this building get built?

Update: I later found out that the tower top will be 105 meters above sea level. But there was no mention of how tall the tower only will be or other important details about we hear in other tower design proposal or news.

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If you are wondering what is the tallest tower in the world it is a new tower in Tokyo, Japan called the Tokyo Sky Tree. It was only recently completed (29th February 2012) and will be opened publicly on the 22nd of May 2012. Below you can see some pictures and charts about this world’s tallest tower.
The full height of the Tokyo Sky Tree tower is 634.0 metres or 2,080 feet. It was built by Tobu Railway and a group of six terrestrial broadcasters of Japan including the famous Japanese NHK TV station. So as you can guess the main purpose for building this super tall tower was to relay television and radio broadcast signals in Tokyo city.

This new tower in Tokyo, Japan is the tallest tower in the world regardless of whether the tower is free standing or supported. When the Tokyo Sky Tree tower topped out at 634 meters it beat the world’s tallest free standing tower which was the 600 meter tall Canton Tower in China. It also took over the record for the world’s tallest tower regardless of whether the tower was free standing or supported which since 1991 belonged to the KVLY-TV mast (formerly the KTHI-TV mast) which stands at 628.8 m (2,063 ft) in Blanchard, Traill County, North Dakota, United States. Its sad to note that the tallest tower ever built was the Warsaw Radio Mast in Poland which stood at 646.38 metres (2,120.67 ft) collapsed in 1991. If that Warsaw Radio Tower was still there Tokyo Tower won’t be the tallest tower today.

Before this Tokyo Sky Tree was built Tokyo city already had a very tall tower called the Tokyo Tower serving the same broadcasting purpose with an impressive height of 333 meters or 1093 feet. However that tower’s height was not enough to give complete coverage for the city because of recent high-rise buildings and skyscraper constructions around it which was obstructing broadcast coverage.

The above photograph shows the old Tokyo Tower which as you can see is now surrounded by tall skyscrapers obstructing its broadcasting capabilities.

Now with this Tokyo Sky Tree, Tokyo will not only once again have complete terrestrial television broadcasting coverage but also boast of having the tallest tower in the world and the second tallest structure in the world. (The tallest structure in the world is the Burj Kalifah Building in Dubai, UAE)

Here is a diagram of the five tallest towers in the world. As you can see this new Tokyo tower is nearly 100 feet taller than its nearest rivel, the Canton Tower and about 300 feet taller than the world famous Toronto CN Tower.

Though today Tokyo Sky Tree is the tallest tower, for a long time in recent history the tallest tower in the world was the CN tower in Toronto, Canada. It was surpassed only recently by the beautiful tower called Canton Tower (600 meter, 1,968.5 ft) in Guangdong province of China. That was in 2010. But Canton tower held that glory only for a short time. Within a year the record for the world’s tallest tower was grabbed by this Tokyo Sky Tree. Now a question is how long will Tokyo Sky Tree tower hold the record for the world’s tallest tower?

In recent years there has been a race among nations specially in Asia to build the tallest towers and buildings. Already Saudi Arabia is building a supertall skyscraper called the Kingdom Tower (formerly called Mile High Tower) whose final height is not yet revealed but leaked news and speculation is that it will be nearly a mile height and definitely taller than the current world’s tallest structure, the Burj Kalifah Building in Dubai. India is also building a structure called India Tower which is 700 meters or nearly 200 feet taller than this new Tokyo Sky Tree. However lucky for Tokyo, though both of these under-construction projects have the term “Tower” in their name they both are not towers in the strictest sense but buildings. So even as scheduled these new supertall structures are completed in 2016, Tokyo Sky Tree Tower will still hold the record for the tallest tower in the world. But for how long remains to be seen.

Japanese will no doubt love to see this tower hold on to that record as long as the Toronto CN Tower did. But skyscraper enthusiasts will like to see the record broken as soon as possible like the Tokyo Sky Tree overtook Canton Tower within a year!

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Panama is world famous the Panama canal. Other than that is it not very well known. So for many in the rest of the world, Panama might look like a unlikely place for skyscrapers and tall buildings. What is not very well known about this country is that the countries capital, Panama City is booming with a impressive skyline of skyscrapers and tall buildings.

Even the famous US Investor Donald Trump choose Panama for his first skyscraper investment outside of United States by building the sail shaped 70 storey Trump Tower Hotel in Panama City. That Trump Tower is currently not only the tallest building in Panama but also the tallest building in Latin America. Just imagine tiny Panama having the tallest building in the whole of South America beating its giant neighbors with densely populated cities and booming economies like Brazil and Mexico!

Starting from around 2000, Panama city saw a rush in skyscrapers and now there are more than 150 high rise building are in this city. There are many more tall buildings currently under construction in this country and new proposal for even taller buildings are constantly coming out. The latest in this is a proposal for a new 320 meter or 1050ft tall skyscraper called the Central Tower.

You can see some computer generated rendering of this proposed new super tall skyscraper building here. If this is built soon it will become the tallest building in Panama city as well as Latin America.

Here are the highlights and features of this 320 meter first super tall skyscraper for Panama. If it is built it will be not only the tallest building in Panama but as well as the tallest building in South America.

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